Peter the Great - Government Reforms

Peter the Great
saw the government in the same light as the military and
the general domestic situation - in need of major reform.
However, by the time Peter died in 1725, there had been no lasting improvements.

Russia was essentially divided into three
with regards to divisions of government: local, provincial and central.

Local government: In January 1699,
towns were allowed to elect their own officials, collect revenue and stimulate
trade. The gift of greater powers of local government was deliberately done in
an effort to reduce the power of provincial governments. The work of local
government was co-ordinated by the Ratusha based in Moscow. In 1702, towns were
governed by an elective board which replaced the old system of elected sheriffs.
By 1724, this was again changed so that towns could govern themselves through
elected guilds of better off citizens. On paper these reforms were fine. But in
reality the power of the local landlord and the provincial governor was immense
and difficult to break.

Provincial government: In December
1707, Russia was divided into 8 guberniia. Each was lead by a
Gubnator who had full power within his guberniia. Each guberniia was further
divided into districts called uzeda. By November 1718, the number of
guberniia had increased to 12 and each one was divided into 40 provintsiia
which were then further divided into districts (uzedas). A Gubernator was
directly answerable to Peter the Great.

Central government: To begin with,
Peter was advised by a council and his orders were carried out by 40 departments
in the Prikazy. Some had specific functions while others had vague
responsibilities which could overspill into other departments making for
inefficiency.

In 1711, Peter appointed a 9 man senate which
evolved into a chief executive and the highest court of appeal. It was
supervised by army officers on Peter's behalf until 1715 when an
Inspector-General was appointed who in turn was replaced in 1722 with a
Procurator-General who was the most powerful man in Russia after Peter.

The Prikazy was abolished in 1718 and
replaced with a scheme borrowed from Sweden whereby 9 colleges were established
with a specific function to cover the whole of Russia. Each college was run by
10 to 12 men and all their decisions were collective.

As early as 1711, an Oberfiscal was appointed
aided by a staff of fiscals who had to be secret appointments as they had the
task of checking the honesty and integrity of government officials.

All careers were open to the talented and
educated - though, invariably, this favoured the side of the nobility. Promotion
in the civil administration or the military in theory was on merit. There were
14 steps in the military's promotional ladder whereas the civil service had just
8. Those who reached the top step in both ladders were automatically granted
hereditary noble status. However, the system did not operate as it should have
as those at the top or nearing the top of the promotion ladder did nothing to
encourage those mid way up the ladder in terms of developing their career as
they were seen as a threat to those at the top.

How effective were these reforms?

In theory they were major achievements.
Russia, pre-Peter, had a backward and barely functioning structure of
government. Peter attacked this as he believed it hindered Russia's progress and
modernisation. However, by 1725, little had changed. Why was this?

Peter has to take some of the blame here. He
was an autocrat and he believed that everything should go through him. He was
unwilling to delegate and allow people to take a final decision. He stifled
initiative and such was his reputation, everybody worked in the way Peter wanted
them to work. Few had the courage to buck the system in case they incurred the
well-known wrath of the tsar.

Also Peter favoured using the army for policy
initiation rather than his civil service. The civil service was in place but it
was never given the opportunity to function at its best.

Another major failing was that once an order
had been issued by Peter, no-one evaluated whether that order had been carried
out and if it had, to what extent it was successful. It was assumed that if an
order came from Peter it would be carried out and that it would be carried out
well.

"The
Russian government remained what it had always been: a collection of
irresponsible tyrannies, working through fear, and softened occasionally
by bribery, crudely carrying out their primeval tasks - the extracting
of money and the recruitment of men"

MLA Citation/Reference

"Peter the Great - Government Reforms". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.